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The Plains to Peaks Post is published quarterly by the National Network of Libraries of Medicine MidContinental Region, at the Spencer S. Eccles Health Sciences Library at the University of Utah.
10 North 1900 East, Building 589
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112-5890

NN/LM National Initiatives

As part of supporting the mission of The National Library of Medicine, the NN/LM MCR also participates in national outreach initiatives. The NN/LM is currently focusing on four outreach initiatives. The NN/LM MCR has a coordinator serving on each of the task forces.

Community College Outreach – John Bramble

MedlinePlus Connect – Rachel Vukas

ClinicalTrials.gov – Dana Abbey

K-12 Education – Barb Jones

Each task force was asked to define desired outcomes from outreach activities targeting a specific population or subject. Then the task force was to learn about the group’s needs and currently available resources. Once the task force identified needs, they developed a logic model to describe how to achieve outcomes, and determine how those outcomes would be measured, and data collected. Throughout the process they were to identify and document effective practices for providing outreach and then share those findings with the rest of the NN/LM.

Community College Outreach

The Community College task force set out to promote NLM resources, offer trainings, and encourage community college libraries to become NN/LM members. Interviews with community college librarians were conducted to assess needs and trainings are being offered. The task force compiled a list of suggested outreach activities that included submitting articles in state library newsletters, exhibiting at appropriate conferences, participation on social media channels that are commonly used by community colleges, and posting to listservs specifically for community colleges.

MedlinePlus Connect

The MedlinePlus Connect task force conducted interviews with electronic health record stakeholders to identify ways to support EHR adoption and the inclusion of MedlinePlus Connect within the EHR. Additionally, they created and compiled resources to promote MedlinePlus Connect such as the MedlinePlus Connect Educational Resources Toolkit, which includes a checklist, videos, presentation slides, online course modules, handouts and other materials. They chose to share these materials with the NN/LM community by the use of an internal webpage. Contact your state coordinator if you are working with electronic health records and could use these resources.

ClinicalTrials.gov

In the past, ClinicalTrails.gov was a database for patients and clinicians to identify trials for participation. With an update of the website, it now includes summary results tables for close to 5,800 trials, with many of the results not publicly available elsewhere. This makes the database an important source of evidence for those performing systematic reviews. The task force created an internal wiki page for NN/LM regions to communicate their efforts as well as share materials such as exhibit booth slides, presentation slides, and other materials to support the training of the new use of the database. Contact your state coordinator if you’d like to make use of these materials in your library.

K-12 Education Outreach

The K-12 Education task force created a logic model that included such outcomes and activities as exhibits, promotional outreach by email, phone, and published articles, training at statewide education association meetings. In addition to the suggested activities, a checklist was created that includes step-by-step instructions for various kinds of outreach and provides examples for best practices in response to questions and training activities.

Looking forward, the NN/LM aims to expand on the work of the task forces and see outreach suggestions and activities be adopted across regions and results shared.

For our members, not only is your state coordinator able to provide you with presentation materials, but also these materials have already been tested and NN/LM approved. The NN/LM coordinators who developed the materials have used them in classrooms, at exhibits and in other settings. Members benefit by getting material they know can be trusted as an authoritative source and work as effective presentations. Please do not hesitate to ask your state coordinator for digital copies. Additionally, Monica Rogers and Dana Abbey offer consultations relating to health information literacy. Teaching classes on NLM resources, such as clinicaltrails.gov or the numerous K-12 resources, means you are involved in health information literacy, so if you have any questions or would like to chat with someone to get ideas, or help to get you started, the RML is here to support your efforts.

-Monica Rogers, Health Information Literacy Coordinator

This story was published in the
Vol 12 No 3 – February 2014 issue of the Plains to Peaks Post. You can follow
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